New camera lens?

I’m toying with the idea of getting a new camera lens for Christmas. Something that’s better  optically than my Canon kit 18-55mm lens but a smaller range than my Tamron 28-300mm. Something I can use an everyday lens when a large telephoto isn’t required.

I’ve been researching for quite a while now and may settle on either the Canon EF28-135mm IS USM or the Canon EF-S 17-85mm IS USM. Both have image stabilisation,  fast/silent USM auto focus & won’t break the bank unlike the ‘L’ series.

Canon EF-S 17-85mm F/4-5.5 IS USM

Canon EF 28-135mm F3.5/5.6 IS USM

I got chatting to a fellow photographer at work who owns the 28-135mm and kindly offered to bring it in for me to take a test drive. So, the next day, I brought my camera in, swapped over the lens & went out for a stroll at lunchtime to take a few snaps.

It’s a weighty beast & makes my 18-55mm feel like a toy from a Christmas cracker. This is the first time i’ve used a USM lens and although the noise/or no noise in the case doesn’t bother me either way, the auto focus is lightning fast. The manual focus ring also extremely precise unlike my other two lenses & is conveniently closer to the camera body rather than in the middle of the lense or in the case of my 18-55mm, at furthest end.

Here’s a few sample shots which I’d taken hand-held.

How this stacks up against the the 17-85mm, I have no idea. Decisions decisions & more research i think…and possibly a trip to Jessops!

Prawn Cocktail With a Twist

Taken from this years Ideal Homes Christmas magazine we thought we’d try out this hot hot take on the old classic dinner party favorite.

The original recipe serves six but we just reduced the ingredients by half for the two of us (apart from the Prawns, cos we love ‘em!). I’ve listed the ingredients for six though

Takes 15 mins, plus 30 mins marinating

• 300g raw Tiger Prawns
• 1 large red chilli, deseeded & finely chopped
• 2 garlic clove, peeled and finely chopped
• juice from grated zest from 1 lemon
• 150g of baby, spinach, rocket, basil (or whatever green salad leaves you like)
• 2 small avocado, peeled & cur into chunks
• 2tbsp olive oil
• 12 slices of of pancetta, grilled until crisp (we didn’t have any pancetta so we grilled slices of pepperoni until crisp).

1. Mix together the prawns, chilli, garlic, lemon juice & zest in a bowl & season with salt & black pepper. Leave to marinate in the fridge for at least 30 mins

2. When ready to serve, arrange the salad leaves and avocado on to plates. Drain the prawns, reserving the marinade.

3. Heat the oil in a frying pan and fry the prawns over a high heat for 3-4 mins until cooked through

4. Meanwhile, pour the marinade into a pan and simmer for 3-4 mins.

5. Place the cooked prawns onto the plates and drizzle over the marinade.

6. Finally, crumble over the pancetta or pepperoni and serve – delicious

As an alternative to having this as a starter, we decide to bulk this up with a side of seasoned potato wedges and a selection of cool dips.

Likewise, a fuss free marinade could be made with Blue Dragons Chilli sauce http://www.bluedragon.com/products/sauces.aspx & jiff lemon juice.

*Blue Dragons’ chilli sauce is a must in our house when we’re making Nachos

Bon appetit

 

 

 

Winter clean up

The weather doesn’t look good this weekend but I’m hoping it stays dry enough to get stuck into a few jobs outside.

The pond is in need of a pre winter clean to removing the fading Lillie pads and other plant material that will sit & rot if I don’t remove it. I also need to lift & clean the two pumps (I usually only keep one running over winter) & the two filter boxes need a pre winter checkup.

The greenhouse has been cleared so I’ve enough room to move most of the outside pots & tubs inside away from the impending frosts. With the addition of a heater & a small collection of bubble wrap i’ve been saving i think we should be o.k.

We also have a blocked drain that needs attention which feeds from the kitchen. I’m thinking it’s a mixture of leaves from the outside guttering combined with kitchen & washing machine waste is to blame.

Pretty much all of the trees in the garden have shed there leaves so it’s one more rake/garden vac job.

Noticed the holly tree is bearing a bumper crop of berries so lots of Christmas wreaths this year.

The garden paths could do with a jet wash.

The veggie beds  lie pretty much empty now which no doubt our cats will take a shine to. Nylon netting doesn’t seem to be doing the trick so I’ll construct some sort of chicken mesh guard.

A little light pruning & i think that it.

 

Red & whites.

This dull dark afternoon is in need of a splash of color so it’s out with my camera to shoot some of the cut flowers dotted around the house.

For these, I’ve used a black cardboard background, setting my subject about a foot away from it and used a spot light rather than flash to pick out the detail. Tripod mounted my camera and used shutter priority mode set to around 4 secs. Iso’s around 100,125 & 200.

Although the tungsten light setting on my camera removed most of the yellow/orange cast from the spot light, i’ve adjusted slightly in photoshop.

 

Premier Historic Rally

This years Sherwood Pines Rally appears to be running a little later in the year than the the usual October. Hopefully thanks to the resent spell of rain rain rain, the stages will be that extra bit muddy this year.

I’ll be there this weekend with my camera in tow hoping to snap lots shots of side sliding 70’s/80’s rally cars

http://www.premier-rally.co.uk/index.asp

 

 

 

Retro Computer Museum open day Nov ‘09

Yesterday saw the second RCM open day of the year (excluding the members only retro-fest in July) and on entrance my immediate attention was drawn to sounds of arcade machines lined up & a Williams Congo pinball table.

Those would have to wait until later as I wanted to have a good look round and chew that fat with a few RCM members. This second event looked even bigger than last May with some huge range of old/new consoles and computers.

As always, plenty of Retro game goodies on offer compared to eBay’s often inflated prices. I manged to pick up a few Retro Gamer Magazines to fill the holes in my collection. A couple of Vectrex Carts caught my eye too.

Time for some gaming, Tempest 2000 (Atari Jaguar), Panzer Dragoon (Sega Saturn), Kikstart (CBM C16), Dropzone (Atari 800) to name but a few.

Like most retro computer events, I’m always interested to take a look at the ecliptic range of home brew storage devices. Take this, it’s a SD card based floppy drive emulator. Simply put, store game files on SD card and load them direct. No more hunting for floppy disks/disk swapping.

Here’s a couple more interesting devices

Atari 2600 rom scanner

Amstrad PC/Sega Megadrive

..and one mother of a controller.

After lunch, the Bomberman competition began. I’m not particularly good and lost out on round one but it was fun all the same – Will practise more for next time. Big Steve won the compo.

I was there all day and stayed behind to help pack up the systems. Heaving those huge arcade machines into the van was thirsty work but the reward was worth it – I got to take a peak at the owners private collection.  There must have been over 50 odd  arcade machines in there….. I was in heaven.

Got back home around 9pm grinning ear to ear. Got a few goodies still in my car boot so will having a look later.

I’ve also uploaded a large collection of photo’s from yesterdays events to my Flickr account so feel free to take a look

http://www.flickr.com/photos/26527444@N06/

RCM Nov ‘09 – Best retro event this year.